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Today in #OpenGov 9/9/2013

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National News

  • Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is standing up for Federal whistleblowers after a troubling court decision last month. Grassley sent a letter to the Obama administration urging it to ensure that large swaths of workers will not have their right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board taken away. (Washington Post)
  • Despite the media's enduring love of coverage about new super PACs, many of the groups, including some run by big political names, are having trouble raising money this year. (POLITICO)
  • Soon-to-be Senator Cory Booker is ending his cutting his ties with Waywire, an internet startup that he helped pull together by leveraging his connections in Silicon Valley. Stories about the startup have not been able to stop the Newark, New Jersey Mayor's roll towards Capitol Hill, but they have become embarrassing.  (New York Times)
International News
  • President Obama stressed the importance of freedom of the press, assembly, and speech at a meeting with Russian civil society organizations during his trip to the G-20 last week. Russia has taken a restrictive view of press and civil society, with recent controversies over gay rights highlighting some of the issues.  (POLITICO)
  • Britain is considering a plan to significantly change the scope of their census. The plan would save money, but experts are concerned that it would not provide necessary levels of detail to researchers and businesses who rely on the data. (BBC News)
  • South Australia is jumping into open data feet first with a series of initiatives including a new data portal, an open data action plan, and an open data challenge to encourage use of government data. (FutureGov)
  • The Declaration on Parliamentary Openness continues to line up support around the globe, recently adding the first International Organization to its list of backers. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly endorsed the declaration this month. (NDI)
State and Local News
  • Escalating fears of a municipal credit crisis are resulting in higher debt service costs for local governments. One way to alleviate some of these concerns is to make more information available to investors in better formats, specifically, according to this post, XBRL. (Tabb Forum)
  • The long fight to get California to post raw campaign and lobbying data online may be coming to an end. According to Secretary of State Deborah Bowen both datasets will now be available for download through the Cal-Access portal. (Tech Wire)

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Shining a Light on Black Budgets

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CIALast week, the Washington Post reported that new documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal the budgets of the sixteen United States intelligence agencies. The budgets, which had never previously been revealed to the American public, totaled $52.6 billion, including $14.7 billion for the Central Intelligence Agency, $10.8 billion the National Security Agency, and $10.3 billion for the National Reconnaissance Office. This revelation shines a badly needed light on the way that our intelligence agencies spend money. We’ve written about the importance of spending transparency many times before. As we’ve argued, “access to government spending information is a fundamental pillar of an accountable government. It provides a basis for citizen participation, promotes government integrity, and encourages greater efficiency.”

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